Largest comprehensive study places Iraq civilian death toll at 150,000

Wonderful

Now...about Yugoslavia?

As much as you hate bringing it up, they hate it even more

Yugoslavia? Well, I can't talk about the rest, but Slovenia is very nice in the summer, I spent a week there last August. You've got blooming mountains, right next to a sparkling mediterranean beach, and some of the most varied and colourful scenes for theatre, literature and art in-between.

If you hoped to connect Yugoslavia to a more specific aspect of this discussion, you have failed to do so this far. But in the spirit of your "point" above, if your intention X was to have me wax lyrical about the galleries of Ljubljana, then your mission was a complete success!

I merely asked if you think Yugoslavia should have broken up or not. Your logic here suggests that the answer would be a resounding no, since the aftermath was what you seem prone to describe as a failure. There's was even a civil war (or two!)...that thing which people love to claim is going on in Iraq now

Ultimately, it's as simple as a yes/no question

I'm glad it did, though not how. "Should" asks whether someone should have made the decision, and there were so many different decisions and deciders involved that that question is invalid without further information.

Now what?

So was the dissolution of Yugoslavia a failure?

Except perhaps for the ones desperately wishing Saddam were still in power, I'd say Iraq agrees!

You're attempting to dictate more of the terms than you really can.

Set out to remove Saddam. Saddam is removed. Success.

Set out to free the Iraqis, Iraqis are more free (regardless of how poorly they use that freedom). Success.

Now, when someone says they are going to invade a country to save lives, does any reasonable person expect the loss of life to end before the fighting is over and the devastated country restored to functionality?

Agreed, for what is now literally the fifth time. And if that is what you set out to do, then you leave in 2003.

Some Iraqis are more free. Most aren't. And if that doesn't count because their oppressors are also Iraqis, then neither did Saddam's oppresion, who was Iraqi too.

A reasonable person? Definitely not. The main contention here is with thoroughly unreasonable people, many of whom claim that the war in Iraq is already a success now because it stopped the killing.

What was the intention, and how do you know?

Exactly! You just paraphrased post #57

But then, I'm not the one who was trotting out Xs...

So that's the point of your analogy? You're saying that like the civil wars in former Yugoslavia, the war in Iraq is fought with no clear goal, and that it is impossible to tell what the US' intention was? That Bush's leadership is akin to that of Milosevic in this regard? That's what your comparison is about?

Why would Bush be Milosevic's counterpart in this scenario rather than Saddam?

You're doing that thing you do again

Because I'm pretty sure I can name Saddam's intention in the latest war: Stay in power. But I can't name Bush's intention, nor that of Milosevic, and the bit you edited out to make your idiocy look a bit more endearing specified that you set knowability of intention as the point of this comparison.

Can your points not withstand scrutiny without resorting to personal attacks?

It's okay...Dan's couldn't either

You haven't even touched on my point yet.

But my patience certainly can't take your brand of arrogant, smug cowardice for any length of time.

But no name calling. Never any name calling

It's so undignified

If the two are not equivalent, then this is the point where an assessment of scale and degree is necessary to move forward. Is it the same level of systematic oppression, has it been a consistent level, is it increasing or decreasing, etc. Those distinctions do matter.

I'm definitely not one of those people. It'll be decades before a real assessment of success or failure can be made. Consider the different answers you would see if you asked someone in...say....1950 if the leveling and occupation, and restoration of Japan was a success, versus asking someone the same question now. It's not an identical example, but things were really bad in Japan for a long time.

I agree. That's the significance of a study that says more people are dying now than before; and that significance, I think, is what you questioned at the beginning of this exchange.

Good.

It's not an identical example, because AFAIK nobody doubted that the main intent in fighting Japan was to defeat Japan and stop Japan from attacking American bases and other countries and killing the people there. This was long achieved in 1950.

Don't worry. marathon drones on and on about it no matter how many times the argument is detonated.

The ceasefire agreement that was signed was subject to United Nations authority. It was not in the legal power of the United States to determine that the initial authorisation to expel Iraq from Kuwait had been reactivated.

But in the end the United Nations supported it which renders your point moot.

The United Nations did not support it, as you well know.

Well, there you go. The Lancet study has about as much credibility as them scientific studies that show there is no link to cigarettes and cancer.

And my point about scientists being no more ethical than you or I? Dead-on.

You know, I'm still waiting for Packard to put forth any credible source that the Iraqi Health Ministry involvement in the survey establishes a bias. He posted a link afterwards, but it didn't back up anything that he claimed.

But then, I expect I'll continue to wait.

The bias in the 2nd Lancet report is undeniable. Hell, even one of the researchers of the 1st has backed off the claims of the second, and it's hard to take the poll as objective when it's other lead author ran for political office in order to oppose the Bush administration, the lead pollster in Iran was involved in the Hussein regime's propoganda about deaths previously, and the money came from a political opponent of the supporters of the war.